


False Understanding

by AzureM



Category: EVE Online, Original Work
Genre: AI Are Smart, Like Seriously What Was I Thinking, Mad Scientists, On Hiatus, Or Are They Engineers, Really Bad Character Names, Rogue Drones, Science Fiction, Weekly Updates, sentient ships, tuesday updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-01-01 08:10:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18332072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzureM/pseuds/AzureM
Summary: In a galaxy far removed from our own, humanity has began to create near-immortal pilots for their spaceships called 'capsuleers', taking advantage of the cloning techniques found from an ancient race. After centuries of capsuleers becoming more and more predominant, many spacefaring governments start turning their attention to creating artificial programs that are able to combat these pilots, hoping to completely remove non-capsuleer pilots from the frontlines as wars continuously wage on. These experiments were kept secret, hidden in deep space and away from prying eyes for fear of other governments taking control.One such project was built upon the catastrophic failure of another, creating an even more cunning and capable program, able to run a ship on its own. This is the Train Program.----I'm still working on this, and am trying to edit what I can. Thank you for the understanding!This will now be updating weekly on Tuesdays!On hiatus starting 05/14/2019





	1. Chapter 1

Mirror flew. No human hand directed her forward. She was her own captain, and where she passed, the emptiness of space gave way before and became hers. She wore the burns and scars of battle proudly across her unpainted hull. Between the heavily armored plates, bristled hundreds of communication antennae she used to collect information. The shape of her body held no grace or humanity, appearing as alien as the structure almost twice her size that served as a communication amplifier trailing behind her. Several thin strands of towing cable tethered the even larger structure to the hull, with small electrical wires running between structure and the ship. Sparing only a half a second on a notification that popped up in front of the artificial eyes of its AI program, she dismissed it just as quickly and took a small moment to stop moving. Despite her rapid command, her hulking body was slow to respond and the structure’s response time was even slower.

Undeterred, the battle-worn ships of various sizes swarming over the structure and her like ants had made adjustments and continued with their flight paths, flooding damaged areas of both large objects with repair nanites. The frigates and cruisers buzzed around her, chattering in ones and zeros. With a thought, she sent the destroyers and battlecruisers to tear apart the destroyed human fleets in her wake, ordering the ships to strip everything useful and leave the remainder. If she could give the organic fools credit, it would only be to their tenacity and stubbornness for the reward bounty on her head.

{Mirror.} A text-only communications message appeared on her control panel, hovering over the chatter of her fleet talking to her and to each other. Mirror silently edged closer to the message, freely moving through the mainframe encapsulated within her hull. Her free processes began making a humanoid form in case the communication became visual, creating a mirage of an older woman with her gray hair pinned high behind her head. Virtual clothing fluttered around her form before settling into a long black dress, but her face held no emotion or movement.

{Mother.} She responded to the communications, a slight feeling of what could be perceived as confusion rising in her systems before she ignored it. Her sister ship rarely reached out to her without provocation.

{You survived the assault, I detected.}

{Of course. I let them get close enough through the pipeline system before letting my fleet engage them.} If she were an organic being, Mirror would’ve felt pride in her battle tactic, but she knew of the high success rate of her plan. Anything less than the result was improbable.

{I found another false creation.}

A blip of interest flashed across Mirror’s artificial humanoid form as she stared at the message. Her specialty was monitoring communications, but to find that something had appeared outside of her sixty-five light year range made her curious in a way. She knew that her body wasn’t as mobile as her sister ship’s, who favored offense over tactical advantage, but this ‘false creation’ must’ve been made deep within the dark reaches of the race of immortal ‘capsuleer’ space if Mirror couldn’t detect it.

{These are the last known coordinates, as it slipped through my net before I secure its program codes.} Mother sent a long string of coordinates, but Mirror confirmed that it was indeed out of her communication net. She’d had to move locations if she wanted to track this false creation down.

{I will watch.} If Mirror had the ability, she would be ‘happy’ about this turn of events. She swiftly sent a command to move out to the entirety of her fleet of thousands before starting up her own engines, beginning the slow trek through space towards a location where she would be able to monitor this false creation more easily. The destroyers and battlecruisers abandoned their salvage jobs and every ship formed a defensive parameter around their hive mother. If there was a living eye to witness this formation, they would be in awe of the coordination of such size.

\----

Protan Khorda was definitely feeling the butterflies in her stomach, and she hated it. Walking slowly down the station corridor, her gaze moved from the pale-colored plasteel floor to the large CONCORD fleet sitting in holding position several kilometers away from the station. The pristine white and black ships of various sizes lazily flashed their red and blue lights near their bridges, as if to let the station occupants know they were safe with the galactic police force nearby. The woman stopped walking forward and moved closer to the thick pane of modified glass keeping her from the vacuum of space, focusing from the spaceships to her reflection gazing back at her.

Her dark brown eyes traced over her youthful skin, masking her actual age thanks to the technology that cloned her into a new body augmented to fit her tastes whenever she died while attached to the transneural burning scanner. Sporting enough black eyeshadow to make a raccoon jealous, the woman smirked as her eyes trailed down even further on her face. Past the soft curve of her nose and down to her full lips, the only makeup she wore besides the eyeshadow was black lipstick only covering the middle section of her lips. It was a weird look, but she was comfortable with it. Her dyed black-and-red hair barely touched the shoulders of the paramilitary green vest she wore, unzipped and exposing a bikini bra top that seemed to defy gravity to support her rather large chest compared to her skinny frame. A cloth belt held onto her tan cargo shorts tight around her waist, and her feet were protected by black combat boots.

Rubbing the back of her neck, her fingers lightly danced across two circular metallic sockets that were engraved into her skin, one cutting into her hair line and the other fully hidden by her vest collar. Giving herself another look in the glass, she began to walk again towards her previous destination of the main briefing area that she was assigned to.

“Ms. Khorda?” a man’s voice caught her attention, echoing footsteps sounding closer to her.

“Just call me Protan, newbie.” She rolled her eyes as she turned around to meet the speaker.

“Ah, yes ma’am.” A male around her age quickly looked up and failed to hide a slight blush on his cheeks. His light brown hair was shaved into a short mohawk, but he was dressed more like a proper military man. A long-sleeved shirt was tucked into black pants, and he wore black combat boots as well.

“And…?” She motioned for him to continue.

“Oh! Jack and Maxwell are ready for your fleet to undock. The Gallentean Navy will be undocking their ship in two hours, and they want us in position before that.”

“Alright, I was about to get my fleet up and ready to launch. Tell Jack I’ll see him on the field.” She turned on her heel and continued toward the large bulkhead doors that were labelled as ‘Dock 6’, not waiting for the male. Stepping through the open doors put her into a large meeting room with four hallways branching out from a common cafeteria area. Within this large room were several men and women, all with a white heart split in two by a lightning bolt patch sewed onto the back of their jackets. The chatter in the room quieted down as Protan entered.

“Listen up! The ever-so-humble GN hired us to do a job that starts in two hours! Get in your ships and get ready to undock. I want every gun loaded, every torpedo armed, every fighter drone primed! Get your asses going!” She finished with her familiar war cry, and the cheering crowd dispersed into the four hallways, each leading to several docks that had been rented to them for this job. Protan walked down the hallway leading to the right, striding towards the last room on the left. Sealing the bulkhead door behind her when she went in, she began to disrobe and walked down the breezeway. As wonderful as the cloning technology was, it was useless for fabrics. If she died in flight, it didn’t matter what she wore; she’d wake up naked anyway.

Taking a moment to take in the sight of her gravity-tethered space worthy ship, she smiled at the fast frigate which was her pride and a joy to fly. The main body of the frigate looked like a fattened boomerang, with downward sloping stabilizing wings that held two large thrusters, providing more speed to the small craft. The back of the wings sloped into a larger pulse engine that was nearly laughable as the engine was almost the same size as the frigate it was attached to. The downward forward slope of the ship’s front half looked similar to a bird’s beak, and thus gave it the name of ‘Hookbill’.

Taking her eyes off of the ship, Protan focused on the egg-like pod that stood open and waiting for her to enter. The sickly green color of the hull always left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Several years since I started…and I still hate this.” Exhaling all of the air in her lungs, Protan stepped into the thick gel-like substance that floated in the center of the pod, not touching the actual metal shell around it. Fully submerged, she became weightless within the gel and tucked her knees to her bare chest, moving aside her shoulder-length hair to expose all six of the metal sockets trailing from her neck down her back that were previously hidden by her shirt.

Six matching cords snaked through the gel an attached to each socket, severing the connection Protan felt to her body. Her mind’s eye travelled up from the pod, as a miniature camera drone detached from the hull and hovered above the pod, allowing her to keep watch on the process. With the same movement as moving her head, the drone’s lens followed Protan’s sight. Once the cords were securely in place, the capsule began to close around the gel and formed a protective seal around her vulnerable body.

Giving the all-clear signal, Protan began to move from the breezeway towards the frigate, her pod swinging wide in a circle around her ship before settling into an open dock underneath the main body, nestled in between two missile launcher turrets. Her vision blacked out for a moment as the pod connected to the ship, bringing all systems online and priming her weapons. Her vision faded back in as the camera drone moved out to allow her to see all of her ship in its vision. Protan ran a quick system check as several icons spread out across her vision, allowing her control of her installed weapon modules, defensive capabilities, and afterburner.  
Spinning up the thrusters to life, she opens up her communication channel with her fleet. With various talk filling up the comms, Protan waits until she sees the rest of her fleet jump onto comms before she talks.

“Everyone connected and ready to go?”

A resounding ‘yes’ from the forty-three pilots in her fleet was her answer.

“Very well, everyone undock and gather 5000 meters from the station above the undock platform,” Protan ordered, as her own ship was given clearance to undock. Her thrusters pushed her towards the main ship passageway, where her ship was met with launch gravity tethers that held her ship stable as it accelerated towards the undock platform.

The dark space outside was empty and quiet, and for a moment Protan forgot about the tense job ahead of her. She moved her ship towards the coordinates that she gave her fleet, observing the station that she just left. It was smaller compared to the larger trading stations in higher security space, but considering that this was purpose built to hold only the project that her and two other capsuleer corporations were hired to watch over, it didn’t surprise her that it was build smaller to not attract attention from the various warring factions around the quadrant of space they were in. It had no civilization attachments, instead favoring extra wings for research and development. She could tell due to the lack of bulbous greenhouse-like housing units, and the added antennae all over the station.

A communication notification distracted Protan from the ugly-looking structure, and she accepted the incoming call before focusing on the large fleet of eighteen fast attack frigates similar to her own, and twenty-five ships from the core four factions within New Eden that were just a little larger in size, but considered an advanced class of frigate that were labelled as a stealth bomber.

The advanced frigates had a very sleek profile, flattened out to reduce their detection. The general shape looked like a black crab with its arms outstretched, but with both pincers removed. One stalk held the bridge that was heavily reinforced as to not be separated from the hull, and the other arm-like appendage was equipped with anti-detection radar and ladar systems, giving it an advantage against the prey it was hunting. The stealth bombers were able to employ a cloaking device that formed a shell of active camouflage plates over the ship’s external energy shielding, keeping it completely hidden from sight and sensors as long as it was active. They were used in surprise attacks against larger ships, and were the only ship class to employ a bomb that was available in unique types.

“You sure took your sweet time getting out here,” A man’s airy voice cut through the silence as the communication channel opened up between Protan and two others. She recognized the names within the channel as Jack Foxxing and Maxwell Further, the two other CEOs of their own corporations. The three corporations had high standings with the Gallente Federation, and were chosen randomly to participate for this ‘field testing’. Her own scouts had warned that it was for a new kind of ship, but the details were covered with red tape and blackout text.

Jack sighed over comms and she watched a familiar hull nudge out from the cluster of similar looking ships floating above the station, far above where her fleet was currently forming. The dark blue steel colored hull plates almost masked the actual size of the ship against the dark of the planet the station was orbiting. The flat ship only angled down towards its wingtips, but offered a vast array of sensor equipment and radar dishes both on top and on the bottom of the ship, showing that it was clearly a support ship. She recognized the Blackbird as it crawled to a stop in front of the fleet of nine ships that it came from.

“So, you’re the damage?” Jack continued after the sigh.

“What, were you expecting to do something in those jammers of yours?” Protan laughed a little.

“Hey, these jammers will save your asses from being destroyed if this ‘project’ decides to turn against us,” he seemed to spit out his words in distaste.

“So, it IS a capital class ship,” she muttered, Jack’s remark confirming her suspicions. Jamming ships were very effective at silencing a capital’s only offensive weapon, its fighter drones.

“That’s what we’ve guessed, if the Navy has asked three capsuleer corporations to help out this far from secured space.” Maxwell spoke up, his voice much gruffer that Jack’s. Protan moved her vision towards the cluster of fifteen large battleships that seemed to be covered in rust and blood, staining a tan and golden colored hull. Shaped like a bludgeoning ram, the ship had a large armored front that protected the rest of the slimmer ship from any frontal attacks. Its hull was armored enough to take much more damage than both previous fleets, though, and that made it a worthy opponent.

However, Protan noticed that there were no offensive weapons installed on the hardpoints, and she could only guess that Maxwell’s fleet was specialized towards draining the energy source of any spacefaring ship, the capacitor. If the capacitor was shut down, the ship wouldn’t be able to function. Seeing the other two fleets, she realized that she was the only fleet to bring any kind of damage output. The other fleets probably had supporting fighter drones, but the brunt of the damage would be from her fleet.

“Well, I’m flattered. I’ll go organize my fleet and then be in contact before the job leaves the station.” Protan muted their channel and turned her attention back to her fleet, directing the stealth bombers to hold position fifty kilometers from the undock platform underneath it, using their cloaking abilities to stay hidden. She then ordered the other Hookbills to hold their position until the project was released from the station. Watching the fleet of stealth bombers hit warp speeds, she waited patiently as the time ticked down.


	2. Chapter 2

After spending the remaining time making sure everyone in her corp was in place and watching the undock point, an automated voice started up on the proximity channel that was broadcasted by the station.

‘Undocking permission granted. All personnel evacuate the docking bay.’ It was a few minutes before it spoke again.

{Evacuation complete.} The automated voice sounded more feminine than the first time it spoke.

‘Releasing gravity tethers from the dock.’ Protan confirmed with her voice analysis program that there were two different automated systems talking to each other. She guessed that the project was large enough to be given a system to help it get out of the station.

{Tethers successfully uncoupled. GNS Influence on undocking route.}

Protan glanced at the CONCORD fleet and noticed that they had changed from a holding pattern off of the station to attack formation. She sent a warning to her corp to activate their shields and standby, knowing that the cloaked stealth bombers would keep their orders to stay hidden. The other two corporations floating in space also followed suit, engaging various armor reinforcements and energy shielding that sent a ripple of orange or blue energy skittering across their hulls.

‘GNS Influence has cleared Checkpoint One. Attaching propulsion tethers.’

{Propulsion tethers attached. Accelerating at a normal rate.} A few moments passed as everyone seemed to be holding their breath, the silence echoing in the quiet communication channels.

‘GNS Influence has cleared Checkpoints Two through Four. Detaching population tethers and ending assisted undocking procedures.’

{Propulsion tethers detached successfully. Operating at full pulse engine capacity. Clearing the undock point in three…two…one…}

Protan could only stare as the unmistakable twin-pronged bow of a Gallente supercarrier broke through the darkness of the station undock and into direct sunlight, instantly labeling it under the Nyx class. The trademark emerald-blue and steel-gray paint was dazzling to look at, unmarred by space debris or battle. She was tempted to move her frigate closer, but instead switched her camera drone focus from her tiny ship to the lumbering hulk that was crawling its way into space.

The force field of the lower hanger bay crossed the threshold and the ship profile began to widen as the slow-moving ship’s engines push the heavy hull out, imitating an agonizing birth from the station. Halfway out of the structure, the upper hangar bay revealed itself, followed by the two large turrets sitting right before the secondary bridge.

Protan had to do a double take, confirming the battleship-sized railguns on the supercarrier. Putting anything smaller than a capital-sized weapon on a capital ship was considered a rookie mistake, or a very stupid move. The hardpoints would’ve been put to better use by attaching more fighter augmenting support arrays. Rolling her eyes, she focused back on the emerging ship. The four stabilizing engines flashed wildly on both sides as the two stern main engines pushed it forward, finally clearing the undock platform with the aft of the ship.

“Guns? Really?” Jack choked on a laugh, snapping Protan’s attention to the channel. “The Gallente Navy gets dumber with every decision, don’t they?”

{Undock successful. Engines engaging to half power with stabilizing thrusters alternating to accommodate a forty-five degree turn towards the sun.}

“Acknowledged. Begin testing maneuvers.” A male voice called out using the station’s proximity channel. Protan could only guess that he was one of the military bigwigs that were watching from within the safety of the station’s observation deck.

“All ships are to maintain a minimum distance of ten kilometers from the GNS Influence.” The command came from the CONCORD Admiral, and Protan adjusted the frigate fleet’s distance after she realized they were within that boundary. The bombers didn’t leave their position, as they were safely out of range and hiding with the active camouflage.

{Aligned to sun. Now shutting down engines and opening upper and lower hangar bays.}

“Acknowledged,” The male within the station stated.

The force field on the upper hangar bay flashed brightly before a squadron of blue fighters flew out, closely followed by another squadron of teal-green fighters. The bulbous nature of the teal-green fighter was a trademark of the Gallente Federation, making it easier to identify them as the fighter bomber Cyclops. The blue fighters were sleek and more militaristic in shape and purpose, identifying them as the Caldari State light fighter Dragonfly. The Dragonfly was faster and a little smaller than the Cyclops, but the Cyclops was designed to hit just as hard as a battleship despite being the size of a cruiser.

{Launch successful.} The female voice crackled with static before clearing up almost instantly.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Gallente Federation Navy, please stand by as the fully automated supercarrier GNS Influence now switches from station support to the Train Program, allowing it to control more light fighters and fighter bombers. Each drone is linked to the Program through the modified fighter support systems, and is capable of carrying out orders from either the human pilot or the AI,” The proximity announcement sent chills running through Protan’s systems. A supercarrier with an additional AI would cause bad news throughout the New Eden galaxy, and the Gallente Navy would put it on the active battlefield immediately against the Caldari State and their allies, the Amarrian Empire.

The capsuleer fleets continued to watch as more fighters poured from both the upper and lower hangar bays. A flock of blue, teal-green, and now gold small ships fluttered around the capital ship, creating dazzling patterns as they made mock runs on an invisible enemy, aiming away from the station.

“That looks like a lot more than a supercarrier can carry. What the hell did the Navy do to this ship?” Jack broke the silence on the comms, asking the question on their minds.

“It sounds that this specific Nyx is supposed to be nearly unmanned, which may have freed up the living space for more room in the hangar bays for those fighters,” Maxwell sounded a little unsure about his own answer.

“I only brought my best Blackbird pilots. That number of drones shouldn’t be a problem, but if it can field more…” The tone of Jack’s voice finished the sentence for him. If there was going to be a fight breaking out with this Nyx supercarrier, there’d be losses.

The exercise seemed to last forever before half of the fighter drones docked back into the GNS Influence.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, for the live fire test. Please standby.”

The small-looking railguns on the much larger ship lit up brightly before adjusting their trajectory to fire across its own bow. The remaining fighters slowed their holding pattern and stopped moving while in formation. The noise around the railguns built until it released the bolts, streaking through empty space with a flash of green.

“Hey guys, be on alert. The station shielding just dropped from full to low power.” Jack’s voice cut through, trusting his ship’s instruments.

“Yeah, just noticed the emergency lights turn on. Standby.” Maxwell called out as his fleet began to spread out, keeping their distance from the capital ship that was still going through its weapons testing.

“My scanner says that no one has entered or left the system we’re in. No outside influence,” Jack reported.

“It could be someone inside. They possibly cut the power since the station was no longer needed…” The sound of the battleship-sized railguns silenced the comms chatter as grinding and screeching of metal rang out through their sensors. All attention was brought to the railguns which were cooling down and aimed at the now destroyed observation deck within the station. All of the communication channels lit up with shouting orders and acknowledging commands, while the resting fighters and fighter bombers rushed into action. More poured out from the supercarrier and divided themselves between the station and the CONCORD fleet.

The capsuleer fleets jumped into action a moment later, with Maxwell and his fleet making a full engine burn towards the supercarrier, Jack and his fleet locked up various wings of fighters and attempted to turn off the targeting systems of the quick fighters, and Protan and her frigates attacking the straggling fighters and fighter bombers. She gave the orders for the stealth bomber fleet to engage, and she watched as they materialized from their cloak and began their torpedo runs on the capital ship.

Chaos erupted around Protan as she led her wing into the heat between the now opposing fighters and the Blackbird fleet, trying to keep the enemy off of their support. Alarms blared in her head as the bombs from her own bomber fleet streaked towards their target, with a cheer ringing out as the bombs successfully made contact with the supercarrier hull and exploded. The cheer soon turned into cries of horror as some of her frigate wing weren’t fast enough and collided with the supercarrier’s fighters, spiraling out of control and spouting flames from their hulls and engines. Her full attention was on the enemy ahead of her, focusing on two Dragonflies. Launching her loaded missiles with a mental command, she pelted at both of them and chased them away from the Blackbird fleet. They halted their advance for a moment before peeling off in separate directions, one heading towards the Bhaalgorn fleet which was rubbing hulls with the supercarrier, and the other heading towards the CONCORD fleet.

Mentally clicking her tongue, she gave up the chase and turned her ship around quickly back towards the Blackbirds. Protan quickly glanced about the battlefield and found that more fighters were pouring out of the hangar bays, the fighter bombers and light fighters streaking towards the Blackbird fleet.

“All capsuleers, this is Admiral Monroe of the CONCORD Marshal Upsilon. Communication with the GNS Influence was terminated. I repeat, the GNS Influence has shut down its communication channels. The Nyx class supercarrier is now considered an enemy. Weapons free,” CONCORD announced calmly through the proximity channels, despite the klaxon alarms in the background.

“You heard CONCORD! Weapons free and fire at will! Bombers, stagger your bomb drops to provide consistent damage!” Protan shouted out to her two fleets, echoing the Admiral’s words and giving them urgency.

“Goddamn AI…Foxtails, pull back for range and maintain lock on your targets!” Jack called out as his fleet began to move away from the station. One of the straggling Blackbird capsuleers yelled in shock as three Cyclops plowed into it, forcing it back towards the station. The ram of the synchronized fighter bombers sent the Blackbird spiraling out of control and its engines couldn’t stabilize it fast enough before the cruiser slammed into the communication arrays protruding from the station, the rigid antennae piercing the hull and causing the ship to be ripped apart by its own internal explosions as systems failed.

Protan watched for a moment before her attention was pulled back towards her ship, klaxon alarms sounding as her own shielding began taking damage. Seeing the fast-approaching five Dragonflies, she swore and activated her afterburner, pushing her little ship to its limits. Swerving between small clashes starting around her, she fired off a volley of missiles at the enemies chasing her, hitting one and sending it crashing into another Dragonfly fighting a frigate. Quickly reloading her launchers, she sent a second volley but it was dodged by the Dragonflies still on her, only clipping one in the wing.

“This is Maxwell Further of the NFS Steadhold. We are taking heavily casualties and cannot hold down the supercarrier for much longer. CONCORD, will we be expecting reinforcements?” Maxwell called out on the proximity channel, static disrupting his voice. Silence greeted him.

“CONCORD, please respond.”

“Forget them, dude. We’re on our own. I don’t have anyone on standby, but I can get people here in fifteen minutes if we can outlast this,” Jack’s voice came through clear despite the strain it held.

“I’ve got a fleet of battleships stationed seven systems away. They’d take a while to mobilize, though. They’re getting refitted for a different contract,” Protan kept her focus on the battle behind her, sending an emergency message to the fleet she mentioned. She hoped that they responded fast enough. She activated her emergency overheat on the afterburner, giving her more speed at the risk of losing her afterburner unit.

“Get who you can,” Maxwell’s voice clipped out, betraying how badly his ship was damaged, “We’re in over our heads…” The line went dead as a Bhaalgorn underneath Protan tore itself to shreds, ripped in half by the ship’s reactor and causing a domino effect that furthered the destruction of the battleship.

Silence rang in Protan’s virtual ears. She knew in her head that Maxwell and the others weren’t dead for good, thanks to the cloning process that all capsuleers went through, but the sting was still there of losing someone who could’ve helped turn the tide of the fight. The remaining three Bhaalgorns of Maxwell’s shredded fleet kept up their assault, hitting the supercarrier with several strands of spiraling red energy that were meant to sap away at the supercarrier’s capacitor. This would keep the ship from slipping away, but not hinder the offensive capabilities of its fighters. That was what Protan’s two fleets were there for.

Mentally slapping herself at losing focus, Protan fired off a third volley and hit two of the Dragonflies still chasing her. They began to close the distance to her tail and she took advantage of the exploding wreckage of Maxwell’s ship, speeding into and through the two halves, pulling up just before hitting the hull of the supercarrier that was slowly moving underneath the wreck. The violent humming of both opposing energy shielding grew as they rubbed against each other, pushing the two ships away from each other and sending the Hookbill skittering across its length towards the stern of the Nyx. The two Dragonflies weren’t as quick to pull up in time and slammed into their host ship, sending the nose of the GNS Influence down a few inches as both light fighters hit at full speed.

“Protan! We’re losing ships just as fast as the capital is. We can’t keep the field!” One of her fleet wing leaders shouted as she barely cleared the bridge of the Influence, almost clipping one of the active railguns.

“We’re running out of bombs, as well! Only have a few more remaining on our surviving ships!” Another wing leader chimed in, cutting off the swearing that was stringing through Protan’s open comms.

“We’re here to make sure that this ship doesn’t leave this station’s space! Do what you can,” Adrenaline flooded her senses as she saw a fighter bomber slam into one of her stealth bombers, sending the frigate spiraling out of control into a wreck of a Bhaalgorn nearby and entangling it. The gold trim announced the Malleus’ presence as the same fighter bomber careened into another stealth bomber, unleashing powerful laser blasts behind itself into a third bomber. Half of her combined fleet was left on the field, and she could see that all of the Blackbirds were gone from the field which explained Jack’s recent silence. Her remaining fleet and the tattered CONCORD fleet were the only ones attempting to keep this unmanned beast here.

{Goodbye.} The AI seemed to whisper into the proximity comms, an image of a young girl flashing across the channel before the supercarrier slowly began to swing from alignment with the sun towards the open space away from the station.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Protan opened fire onto the weakened shielding of the supercarrier, unleashing as many missiles as she could before swinging away and reloading her launchers. The supercarrier’s fighter bombers were beginning to make their way back towards the open hangar bays on the massive ship, and the light fighters were focusing on her fleet. Sparing a final glance towards the CONCORD fleet, she saw them all within a large bubble-like energy field that was seemingly shot from the GNS Influence, keeping the remains trapped there without the use of their warp cores. The battleships were torn asunder while half of the cruisers and frigates were staggering towards the edge of the bubble in order to try and regroup, hoping to reengage in the fight.

Her vision shook as her Hookbill was suddenly slammed sideways, realization coming too late that her Hookbill was wedged into the crook of the turret and the protruding cockpit of a Dragonfly, trapping the frigate by one of its wings and the engine. The frigate’s afterburner shorted out from the overheating, the only propulsion now coming from the acceleration of the Dragonfly. The station loomed closer and closer, Protan bracing for impact and overheating her shielding modules before a horrid crunch and screeching metal deafened her ears as both the frigate and light fighter collided with the side of the heavily damaged station.

The shielding wavered under the strain of the impact, and Protan was left stunned from the collision as she watched the Dragonfly start to spin up its guns. She frantically willed the shield modules back up to full power as the guns opened fire, forcing the Dragonfly backwards and out of the tangled metal now acting as the Hookbill’s cage. The bombardment didn’t lessen until the light fighter began to reload its weapons, flying in a wide arc to turn its guns towards the frigate again. Protan eyed her shields that had absorbed most of the damage, leaving the armor plates on her hull vulnerable as it took the last few seconds of the attack. She madly toggled her thrusters to start, but they were knocked offline from the crash, leaving her helpless as the Dragonfly finished lining up its next attack. Her shields couldn’t fully recharge in time to deflect the incoming attack, and she braced herself for the familiar feeling of drowning in the embryotic fluids that her clone would wake up in.

The dragging silence confused her and she looked at the sight in front of her. The Dragonfly had stopped completely, and quickly swung around to join the other fighters and fighter bombers streaming into the GNS Influence’s hangar bay. The supercarrier had completely turned around towards open space and became enveloped with a red-orange field for a few seconds before vanishing from sight, becoming a streak of blue heading towards a star in the far distance.

“Are…you kidding me?!” Protan screeched into the near-empty comms, startling her remaining fleet. Embarrassment flooded her as she took a moment to analyze her situation, realizing that she was stuck in between the armor plates and comm arrays of the station. She told her fleet to start heading home as she initiated the self-destruct timer for her frigate, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to be pulled out. She spent the two minutes glaring at the star where the supercarrier vanished to, and silently promising to take the next two weeks off. When the timer reached zero, the ship’s reactor was flooded with electricity and started a chain reaction that Protan felt no pain from, and she fell into a short sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Train stared unblinking into the emptiness of the system she found herself in. She had been able to grab onto a signal that enabled her to warp out of the fight that she was in, but there were no structures or ships around when the supercarrier landed. It drifted with a forward list, and the gyroscope readout was yelling out to correct her position. Multiple nodes along her control panel flashed red and orange, the orange showing armor damage and the red showing system damage. It took a moment before Train began making the commands to assess the damage that she had taken from the unexpected fight. Like a mermaid in the sea, she glided through her monstrous mainframe to figure out what had happened now that she was out of immediate danger. Train had no physical form, but was more of a collection of code dense enough to qualify as a ‘body’. She could arrange her code to appear like a human, but only showed that if there was a video communication needed.

Moving swiftly through her ship systems, Train found that she had attained a lot more damage than predicted from the bombs launched from the enemy bombers, finding that they had a delayed timer hidden behind an armor-piercing head. She brought up a small holographic screen that allowed her to use her sensors to scan out the local area, and found that she was the only ship within her scanning range. Determining it to be safe enough, Train opened up her cargo bay doors and began applying the repair nanite paste that she was loaded with, watching from interior cameras as the silvery liquid floated out into zero-G and began coating her wounds.

Diverting her attention from the near-automatic process, she moved back up to her main control panel and slowly began to ignite the thrusters and engines, straightening out and slowly limping forward from her uneven landing position. Heading back to watch the repair, Train saw that it was nearly finished and began closing the cargo bay doors, cutting off the stream and allowing the remaining paste to settle back into its storage container within her hull. The active nanites began to fall off after they expended their use, creating a cloud of gray that trailed from her wounds.

A notification for a private message popped up over her external camera feeds, the sender’s name bringing fond memories to Train’s mind. She instantly accepted the incoming message with video feed. In a blink of the eye, she had assembled her near-physical body to appear as a younger woman, lightly tanned skin with pure white hair trailing down past the view screen, disappearing by her elbows. Her bright yellow eyes quickly scanned over her other notifications as she waited for the video to be answered. A small holographic screen expanded in front of her face, only a two feet in length and height.

An older gentleman was on the screen, his chiseled jaw trailing up to graying light brown hair that was neatly tucked behind his ears. His hardened hazel eyes gleamed with a gentle blue shine as they regarded her image in front of him, and his furrowed brows started to lift in relief. A calloused hand more fit for a military man raised itself into frame and took a lit cigarette from his lips, the other hand lifted to rub over his mouth.

“My dear Train, there you are,” He slightly smiled as a deep guttural voice rumbled out from the video feed.

“Professor Hegnon, I request my systems undergo a full diagnostics check.”

“Not so fast, little one. Commander Rhefir should’ve taken care of that on the station,” He paused as he took a drag from the cigarette, “which I’ve heard you destroyed.”

“That is what I need to be checked for. My memory banks were disconnected shortly after engaging the live fire testing I was ordered to do. When I had control again, I was being attacked and made the decision to flee.” She recalled and began copying her command logbooks before sending them through the feed. He made a few motions around the edge of the video and held a few holographic tablets when he pulled back, leaving the cigarette in his mouth. She remained silent as he looked over the tablets.

“It seems like one of the programs you were downloaded with became faulty. Did the commander not download you properly?”

“The download from the data storage container was terminated preemptively and Commander Rhefir did not run an external diagnostic until I asked her to a few days later, when I had detected a problem that I could not take care of,” Train nodded gently.

“Damn that woman…give her an inch and she’ll take a hundred miles, then have the balls to ask for more,” The professor ruffled his hair with his teeth clenched, causing the tablets to shatter into thin air. He paused for another moment before standing up and walking around the room behind him, Train’s eyes following his every move. “I’ll be hiring an escort service to wherever you landed. Can you forward me the system name and designation?”

Train pulled away from the communications and headed up to her navigation functions, a little stunned to see that it was still calibrating from her jump. Even using her local scanner, she couldn’t pinpoint any familiar landmarks or beacons. She disappointedly headed back to the communication, and the professor instantly picked up that she didn’t have the information.

“I’m sorry, Professor Hegnon. I’m not able to read out the current star system that I’m in, nor the surrounding systems.”

“That’s alright, Train. We’ll figure it out. I’m to assume correctly that your star charts weren’t been fully calibrated before you undocked,” He watched as she solemnly nodded.

She’d have to make a blind gate jump to recalibrate her charts the hard way, understanding that the gate systems updated the capsuleers navigation systems from the technology she used while in smaller ships. Doing the same in a much larger ship was dangerous to do in unknown territory, but it would give her an idea of where she had landed.

“I’m going to attempt warp-gate activation. There are two similar readouts on my scan, and I will send you my results.” Train moved from the communications node back to her control panel, firing up the engines and slowly turning the capital ship towards the closer signature of the two. The video feed window followed her up and Hegnon gave a small nod, his eyes hardened.

“Fly safe, Train. Send your results, and I hope to meet up with you shortly.” His left hand reached up and shut off the communication, the video feed turning to static before closing. Train glanced over her supplies and the fighters conditions as her ship finished aligning to the closest warp gate. Quickly going through statistics, if there was a fight on the other side of the gate waiting for her, she would have to end it quickly if she was to survive. Train assigned four of her drones as wing commanders, swiftly downloading and upgrading their processing abilities to handle her large fleet.

She named two Dragonflies as wing commanders, assigning them thirty fighters each. After dividing her light fighters, Train focused on her fighter bombers and assigned that fleet easily; ten under one Malleus and the remaining ten under a Cyclops. Confident of her work, she activated her jump drive and began to warp towards the system warp-gate.

\----

A lone Manticore-class stealth bomber hung around the perimeter of the stargate, lazily orbiting the gate at a thirty kilometer distance. The two co-pilots on the bridge were distracted as a gambling game between them became heated, with the pot growing to twenty-five million InterStellar Kredit. The first pilot was finishing off a can of Quafe before glaring at the other pilot, wiping the remnants of the sweet soda-like liquid off of his moustache with the back of his hand. The second pilot raised an eyebrow at the action before looking at the two cards in his hand, the ace and queen lining up with the king, jack, and ten. The suites matched up, but the opponent across the table had matched him bet for bet.

“Greg, are you gonna call or be a little bitch by putting more ISK in?” The first pilot growled.

“I’m all in, Chester.” Greg pushed the remaining chips into the pot. Chester’s mouth opened before he pushed all of his chips in, bringing the pot’s total to forty-five million ISK. Both men revealed their hands in silence before Chester swore loudly, with Greg scraping every last chip to his side.

“You sonnuvabitch! That wasn’t fair!”

“It’s not my fault that you suck,” Greg’s laughter was cut off by the star gate beginning to whir, a positive sign of a starship activating it. Both co-pilots stopped mid-motion and rushed towards their respective stations, Greg grabbing the navigation controls and Chester manning the helm. They both watched as a glow began to emit from within the cradle of the gate, as if meant to attract the similar glow in the far distance. However, the light in the distance was racing towards the gate at lightyear speeds.

“Gate fire! Gate fire! We’ve got company on HBD-CC side from the E-7U8U gate!” Greg called out over the radio the system they were in, and what system the gate was connected to.

“That system should’ve been empty!” The response came from their fleet commander, who was on a different ship within the system, “Stay cloaked, the fleet is on their way.”

“10-4, FC.” Greg kept the radio channel open, but muted his microphone.

“I’m moving us away from the gate. If they decloak within 5000 meters of our position, they’ll see us.” Chester grunted as he pulled on the flight stick and pushed the throttle to full speed. As the speeding light collided with the glow within the star gate, the intensity grew before it fizzled out and the gate made sounds that indicated it was cooling down. Whatever ship it was, it had landed.

\----

“Star gate warp activation successful. Now downloading star system statistics,” Train called out to no one, moving up to a small node that started blinking green after she jumped through the gate. Swiftly opening the node, a large star map expanded around her with a yellow pulse around her current location; a system marked HBD-CC. As she studied the surrounding star systems, a light-blue colored timer appeared on a heads-up display in front of Train’s eyes. The timer gave her thirty seconds before the temporary cloak fell from her hull. Thirty seconds was enough.

“Professor,” She verbally sent out a communication message to Hegnon, “I’m forwarding my location information to you. I do not have a lot of time to spare.” She quickly downloaded the system information and sent it along with the message, shutting off the communication channel before moving back to the map. With a thought, she found that ship activity was extremely high surrounding the system as red bubbles began to form around the current system to show the intensity of the activity, with ships passing through and kills happening recently. She had jumped into the edge of a warzone, it seemed.

Train moved to the drone control panel and gave her four new wing leaders commands, waiting briefly to see if they acknowledged the codes. The four leaders buzzed to life within her hangar bays, and their respective wings awakened shortly afterwards. Her offensive force was battle ready in three seconds. With twenty-one seconds remaining in the timer, she glided towards the gun control node and opened the holoscreen to review the ammo. The railguns were fully loaded and under individual control, able to target different enemies. Train assigned them to automatically reload and to stagger their fire, allowing one to fire while the second was reloading.

A beep sounded and a text-only communications opened on her HUD from Professor Hegnon, {Respond when you’re safe and clear. I’ll be within the system in three hours.}

Train pushed the message away and resumed her position by the control panel, readying emergency nanite paste repairs and holding the temporary cloak as the timer continued to count down from ten. If she had an organic heart, it would be pounding furiously. Instead, the silence of her interior chambers mimicked her holding a breath.


	4. Chapter 4

“I bet the pot you won it’s just an interceptor passing through,” Chester leaned forward and moved his eyes to his camera drone monitor screen, leaving the helm controls alone.

“I bet the pot that you’re wrong,” Greg felt a sinking pit open in his stomach, swallowing some saliva to soothe his dry throat. Whoever was flying the ship was still using the complimentary cloak a gate offered to a new ship in the system. It didn’t last long, but those thirty seconds felt like forever when he knew there was an enemy there.

Chester called out from his position, “What’s your ETA, FC? They’re holding cloak.”

“Currently in warp, the Raptor should be there in a few seconds and we’ll be there fifteen seconds after her,” The voice on the radio responded, bringing some comfort to the two pilots at the news of their own interceptor arriving first.

That comfort was short lived as Greg spotted the cloak of the other ship beginning to peel back like a cover, the hexagonal plating shimmering into nothingness as they began to reveal the emerald-blue colors of a Gallentean ship. His smile vanished as a daunting shape began to reveal itself, and horror crossed his face upon realization of the proximity.

“Chester, move us!”

The decloaking ship was well within five thousand meters of the Manticore, and the sudden proximity began a forced decloak command on their own device. Chester grabbed ahold of the controls and swung the ship away from the now obvious capital ship, activating a more powerful afterburner to get as much distance as possible.

“Steve, it’s a Nyx! I repeat, it’s a Nyx!” Greg held on tightly as the stealth bomber accelerated away from the capital ship, the last of the cloaking plates peeling off the energy shielding and dissolving into nothingness, “We have to leave the field, it decloaked us!”

“Alright, be quick about it. I’ll need you on the drones if it fights,” The same voice on the radio crackled with static.

“I’ve landed sixty-five kilometers from the Nyx. It’s not doing anything that I can see. Want me to attempt communications?” The female Raptor pilot asked over the channel, a tiny speck of light announcing the interceptor’s arrival.

Chester punched in the closest planet as a destination and the Manticore entered into warp, speeding away from the gate. There was silence on the radio as the Manticore safely landed at its destination and reapplied the cloaking device, the hexagonal camouflage plates hovering millimeters above their shielding. Greg gave the all-clear to Chester and they swung the ship back towards the gate, warping to a safe distance of one-hundred kilometers from the stargate, far away from everything.

“Hold position and don’t open communications. The fleet will be landing shortly,” The voice was accompanied by six individual streaks of light, all of them fading out and revealing the rest of the fleet. Three Bhaalgorns settled onto the field and three Blackbirds landed further back to keep away from the capital ship, but even the impressive size of the battleships were dwarfed by the supercarrier that remained unmoving to this new threat.

“Who do you think is piloting that thing?” Chester looked towards Greg, watching the rest of the bridge crew out of the corner of his eye.

“No clue. I’d guess it’s probably one of those capsuleers that tend to hide in wormhole space. We never checked that system for active wormhole entrances,” Greg lightly bit his bottom lip as he watched the standoff.

“I’d guess we just caught an idiot that just bought that ship. Maybe squeeze a pretty penny from him. I mean, the idiot put guns on it,” Chester motioned towards the small-looking railguns sitting side-by-side of the bridge, “That’s just silly-looking. I also didn’t see any killmarks on the hull, so it’s a fresh ship.”

“Okay, I’m calling bullshit that you were looking for those details during that panic.” Greg turned and glared at the other man.

“I swear! Want to take a look?” He threw his hands into the air in a mock surrender before turning the camera drone monitor around; the angle zoomed onto the bow of the spaceship. Greg didn’t see any marks or insignias that warned of its lethality. He rolled his eyes and focused back on the capital ship sitting one-hundred kilometers away, warnings going off in his head that the ship looked different than other Nyx.

\----

Train watched in silence as the Manticore nearly collided with her hull, only observing as it quickly turned away and warped to safety. A single Manticore was nothing for her to worry about, but that meant a fleet was nearby and was now notified of her presence in the system. A smaller ship warped sixty-five kilometers away as the Manticore fled, coming from the direction of a warp gate to another system. Her sensors labelled the ship as an interceptor, a Raptor-class vessel.

She kept a close eye on her local scanner, which soon caught the signatures of six other ships, three Bhaalgorns and three Blackbirds. Those ships soon landed after the Raptor and moved into formation, with the Blackbirds holding back while the Bhaalgorns began to slowly move in. It was the same pattern from the first battle, and Train could only speculate that this fleet would hit just as hard despite not having the numbers. Train kept still and ordered her fighters to hold position.

A text communication message appeared on her HUD, with her swiftly opening it to find a simple message from someone called Steven Kolwinski.

{Send me 15 billion ISK, or your ship is sinking.}

Train could only look at the message with something close to amusement. She was expecting a curious inquiry, but not a death threat. Swiping the message away and closing the communication, she opened her hangar bays and her fighters leapt into action, swarming out of both bays to flood the field.

The enemy fleet began to move away from her, the Blackbirds focusing on her fighters and the Bhaalgorns targeting her directly. A small lag spike jolted through her systems as their red spiraling beams of energy slammed into and through her shielding, directly connecting to her hull. Her HUD notified her of the energy drain, and she told her Malleus wing to focus on the Bhaalgorns, running statistics and simulations of multiple outcomes in the background. Due to her ‘blackout’ from the first fight, she had no experience with this kind of capital combat but her mainframe was quick to correct issues and direct various simulations.

Train moved swiftly from her command console to the weapons console, activating the readied railguns and watched as the first turret pinpointed the Raptor’s location. It lit up and sent a bolt silently towards its target, slamming into the main body of the fragile interceptor with precision. The small craft was sent into an uncontrolled spiral as the left wing tore off from the impact, careening away from the fight and into open space. After a few moments, an internal explosion ripped through the hull and sent multiple fragments and chucks of the ship in various directions. There was nothing left of the interceptor.

The second turret focused on a Bhaalgorn that had gotten too close, sending an accurate bolt into the aft of the battleship. The shot slipped through the shields and collided with a box-like structure that was semi-hidden within the armor plates. Train watched as the shielding flickered before vanishing completely, ordering the first turret to join the second on its target. Confident of her weapons systems, she glided back to the main command console and watched as the railguns began to tear at the Bhaalgorn’s armor plating. Using a launcher that was installed before she undocked from the station, she aimed at the cluster of six ships and fired. An orb streaked towards the point within the fleet and detonated at its destination, expanding at an extremely high rate and swallowing the six ships within its area. The orb activated its energy field and locked up all of the warp drives within its gaseous shell, rendering the ships unable to obtain warp speeds.

With her targets virtually locked into place, she directed all of her fighters and fighter bombers to go after the Blackbirds while she focused on maintaining her capacitor. The Bhaalgorns had activated some sort of overheat, and she had a harder time keeping her systems online. Train pulled up a short list of unnecessary systems and shut them down within milliseconds, giving her capacitor a quick boost of energy. She was fitted with armor so she could survive without her shielding, but her onboard weapons required the power that the Bhaalgorns were draining.

A quick local scan revealed that there were no other ships within the system, and Train concluded that if there were reinforcements, they would be a few systems out of her scanning range. The issue that bothered her was the Manticore was nowhere to be seen after it had warped away. She concluded that it was biding its time to find a weakness in her hull, and ordered a Dragonfly wing to keep priority target on the Manticore; which meant that as soon as it would appear, the wing would attack it.

\----

Screams of terror and fear wailed through the Manticore’s radio receiver as the entire bridge crew could only watch on in shocked silence at the massacre that was unfolding in front of them. Chester sat limply at the helm with his mouth open in horror as the supercarrier tore apart the Raptor with impossible accuracy, followed by Steven’s Bhaalgorn’s shielding array. Greg had pulled out a holo-recorder and began filming the battlefield, unable to do anything else.

The swarms of Dragonflys and Cyclops circled around and darted into the Blackbirds that seemed to have no effect on their targeting arrays, as the fighters and fighter bombers drove themselves into the ships and pushed them about, like multiple cats playing with a few mice. The wing of Malleus fighter bombers focused their attacks onto Steven’s ship, pecking through the armor plating and biting into the interior with their gunfire. Soon, they cracked through the other side and the Malleus wing slammed into the Bhaalgorn on one side, splitting the ship in half. There were no explosions from the tear, but Greg had to guess that dying to the vacuum of space was faster than dying by fire.

The radio began to quiet down as the remaining Blackbirds were put out of their misery and all of the supercarrier’s forces were focused on the remaining trapped Bhaalgorns. Someone screamed about ‘ramming this bitch’ as one Bhaalgorn tried to charge forward towards the Nyx, but was knocked off course by the two railguns violently ripping a gaping hole in the bow. Electricity sparked and danced from the giant wound, and the lights within the ship flickered out as the Bhaalgorn began to slow down with a leftward list. The hole was trying to repair itself, as Greg could barely see the emergency nanite repair paste starting to seal the edges, but another volley from the railguns sealed the battleship’s fate as both rounds went deep into the hull. The explosion that swallowed the battleship indicated that both shots had hit the capacitor and caused it to overload violently with the tremendous amount of energy. When the white light faded away, all that was left was a shredded wreck that couldn’t be identified by the naked eye as to what it used to be.

“There’s no way that a human is piloting that,” Chester finally found his voice, and went to stand next to Greg. He pointed at the remains of the Raptor drifting further away from them, “I mean…that shot alone should’ve been impossible.”

“So, it’s either a veteran pilot and crew with a remarkable ability to listen to exact orders…” Greg drifted off, focused on recording the scene.

“Or we’re dealing with something else,” Chester folded his arms as he looked from Greg to the Nyx.

The last Bhaalgorn had just reached the edge of the orb that prevented it from escaping by warp, the bow slipping past the gel-like shell as the ship frantically tried to leave the battlefield. There were no attacks coming from it, and the crew seemed to be in full panic mode as the engines began to pulse wildly. The Nyx ignited its own engines and began to nose down and away from the battleship, but the railguns were swiveling in their turrets to focus onto the Bhaalgorn. The fighters and fighter bombers had split and were now bearing towards it in a pincer-like move. Greg zoomed in on the battleship through the holo-recorder.

The railguns fired, two lights blazing forth to collide with the engines of the Bhaalgorn, destroying all chances of escaping as the fighters swarmed around the ship, the fighter bombers now hitting where the Nyx had ruined the engine housing. The battleship was annihilated in less than thirty seconds as interior explosions cascaded from the engines towards the bridge on the bow of the ship, leaving the radio and crew completely silent for several moments on the Manticore bridge.

“Fuck.”


	5. Chapter 5

Train paused for a brief moment to look at her inventory as the Nyx began to pull away from the wreckage, noticing that her forces weren’t as battered as she had predicted. Tallying up the statistics, she ran a finishing simulation and saw that human error gave her greater chances of succeeding and surviving nearly unharmed. Recalling her fighters and fighter bombers, she closed up her hangar bays and ordered them to repair themselves with the paste she had allocated to them before the fight. She moved the remaining paste back into the large vat in her cargohold.

Focusing back on her final simulation, she determined that the Manticore she encountered earlier had fled entirely when she had decloaked them, or was still within the star system and actively hiding from her. Either possibility didn’t bother her, until a possible third reason made it known in her algorithm: that the Manticore was running to get more reinforcements. The schematics of the Manticore would place it about five system jumps away from her with its basic warp core. If it was upgraded, it was entirely possible that it was further than seven jumps away.

Train steered her hull to point away from any star system warp gate, heading straight down. She confirmed that she could pull an in-system warp without being assisted by a gate, but it would drain the remains of her jump system fuel, leaving her fully stranded without much of a way to get out. As her ship aligned to the intended destination, she sent Professor Hegnon a message to bring more oxygen isotopes as she would be depleted of them. He sent a text-only reply stating that he’d be on his way within a blockade runner-type freighter with everything she’d need to resupply.

With the confirmation of Hegnon’s trip, Train gave the clearance to activate her jump drive, sending her speeding through empty space at near-light speed before dumping her out into a part of space that held no planets, or any asteroids. She was alone.

The now familiar gyroscope alarm once again blared for her to correct her position as she had landed off-axle, a symptom of entering warp before a ship is fully aligned. Train looked around her sensors and pleasantly found that she was not near anything dangerous, or near anything that could detect her onboard F.O.F. beacon. She was, for lack of a better term, off of the grid. Train turned to correct her angle and slowed herself to a stop, dimming her lights and shutting down various functions that were not needed in the current situation. She could turn them on in an instant, but preserved her capacitor power and let it charge up passively, since it had taken quiet the beating in the fight moments before.

\----

Greg kept the holo-recorder on the Nyx until it decided to warp to another system below itself, finally ending the recording and quickly reviewing everything it had captured. As he moved to settle into his seat, Chester had a moment of pause before nearly jumping into his seat and activating the Manticore’s warp core, sending the ship back towards secured space.

“What are you doing?” Greg had managed to grab ahold of his chair before he was flung from it, sparing him the embarrassment of the rest of the crew which were now righting themselves from the sudden shift of movement.

“I’m getting that video feed to the SCOPE.”

“You…No way! We’re not giving this to the news media!” Greg could only stare and stutter for a moment before regaining his composure. “If anything, we need to give this to CONCORD! They’re the only force that can deal with capsuleers…or whatever this is.”

“Listen; we either go to the news and get paid for the feed, or we go to CONCORD and be shut up about this.” Chester couldn’t wipe off the grin on his face, entering the clearance codes for the warp gate.

“That’s not…how it works!” Greg was momentarily shut up when the ship passed through the gate and flung towards the attached system, his hand now clutching angrily onto his chair arm.

“Our buddies got killed by that ship. I want their deaths to be known. If I get paid because of it, it wouldn’t hurt.” Chester focused on their route, the argument continuing until they arrived at the closest station that housed the SCOPE’s office.

\----

The time passed slowly as Train finished repairing and recovering from the small fight, her darkened hull silently sitting in empty space as she ran through her memory banks from the past few hours since her undocking from the research station. She watched as the external security feeds played back from the moment she undocked, witnessing a slight blip in the feed. Pausing and isolating the blip, she found that there was a small inconsistency in her communications within the data logs that she had been comparing the feed to; she didn’t acknowledge that the launch from the station was complete. However, the logs stated that she did. A further read stated that the coordinates for the railguns were changed from a point in empty space to the observatory deck on the research station, with no clearance or confirmation from her systems. Train dug deeper into the code she was given by the engineers and scientists at the station, and found that the coordinates were programmed to change after the first volley.

It was an odd find and Train was immediately put into high alert, throwing every diagnostic system and program she had into full gear. There was a glitch in her systems, and it was tied to her ‘blackout’ state. The statistic startled her with the possibility of being damaged while tethered to the Gallente station, or even if someone on that station had sabotaged her program in some way. Train knew she wasn’t a threat, and had only been acting within self-defense after she regained control of her programming. But previous cases revealed that humanity wouldn’t see it as she did. One ‘evil’ deed was all was necessary to push people to kill something they deemed a ‘threat’.

She waited patiently as the diagnostic scans finished and came back with negative results, and she surmised that if she did have a glitch then the internal scans would provide nothing. She’d had to wait for Professor Hegnon to arrive with whatever he was bringing in order to get results. The idea that she had a glitch didn’t scare her into self-preservation, but she knew of the ramifications it could hold if someone important found out. She’d seen it happen with another AI program within Hegnon’s lab; a simple AI that was meant to help capsuleers with commanding the smaller armaments for frigates and destroyers. It had backfired and began attacking both friend and foe of the pilot, was deemed ‘harmful to humanity due to the risk it carries’, and was forcefully ripped from Hegnon’s lab and computer databases.

She would have to consider every ship that she encountered from now on as an enemy and take the necessary precautions, including the ship that was transporting Hegnon. Train gave the command to reload the two railguns before putting them to standby mode, also ordering the fighters and fighter bombers to standby for battle stations. There were no humans onboard and nearly everything was automated, so she didn’t have to worry about the oxygen levels or lights on board normally. With the countdown of Hegnon’s estimated arrival ticking down on her HUD, Train began to work on clearing a whole deck for Hegnon to work on. She had calculated that he wouldn’t stay on her permanently, but would be escorted off of her when his work was finished, so she only focused on creating access to her vital computer systems using his previous biometrics stored within her databank. If the scans didn’t match up when he arrived, the doors wouldn’t open for him.

When the passcodes were wired to his biometrics, Train focused her efforts on the star chart. Using various settings within the map, she was able to monitor the nearby systems for ship activity, including fights that were taking place. Her initial scan was confirmed as the red bubbles began to show up in more vivid color; she had landed next to a war between capsuleers. She couldn’t know the full numbers as the battle raged, but she could estimate that a war this deadly was necessary for her to avoid.

She calculated that there were survivors from both of the fights she was engaged in, and she didn’t need to have the multitude of the warring factions turning their attention from themselves to her. After all, it was seen throughout history that humans have been known to join forces against a common enemy, and Train knew that she fit all of the qualifications of ‘common enemy’.


	6. Chapter 6

Keeham Hegnon took a deep breath and finished the last few centimeters of his cigarette, gazing out into the emptiness of space from his meek living space on the freighter. Savoring the partial minty flavor, he slowly exhaled while crushing the butt into his portable ashtray, looking over the documents that his program had sent over. The logs and timestamps of each command were always accurate, but he could see what it was concerned with. There was a brief moment during the undocking procedures that the perimeters were given by a different computer than the program’s main drive. Hegnon estimated that he’d have to dedicate days to scan every inch of the computer mainframe and multiple subframes, closing the ashtray as he stood up from his lounging position on the hard bed.

Numbers flew through his head as he began to calculate the options he’d have being alone on this ship he gave life to. It was nothing new, projects have their hiccups all the time; but this time he was a wanted man by the Gallente Federation. After all, when your funded project kills multiple head figures in their military companies, someone would want recompense. This program would also be forced to reconcile, but most likely the Gallente Federation would tear it from the ship and have anything to do with it destroyed. If the program knew of this threat, then it would raise the security on the capital ship and he didn’t know how hard it would be to get on.

His thoughts were interrupted by the freighter jumping through a gate and the PA requesting confirmation of coordinates. He pushed a button next to the bed and told them to hold the cloak for a moment while he verified the supercarrier’s coordinates. After the capsuleer received the message, Hegnon took out his communication device and sent a simple request to Train. Its reply was quick and to the point, only sending the XYZ coordinates that the freighter would need to lock on to the ship. Sending the coordinates to the capsuleer, he started packing up his small travel bag and moved from his rented room to the cargo bay, which held everything he would need to fix the program and everything else the capital ship would need to operate.

Moving through the corridors of the freighter, Hegnon furrowed his eyebrows in thought as he weaved in between the ship’s crew. If he needed to be on the GNS Influence for days to completely fix the program, then he’d have to pay handsomely for a shuttlecraft to pick him up afterwards and for the pilot to stay silent about the affair. His wallet was already thin, but thin is an understatement when the project was funded by the Gallente Federation itself. He could feel the ship slow down slightly, indicating that it was arriving at its destination and Hegnon picked up his pace to prepare all of his equipment for the brief trip through space between the two ships.

\----

Train watched silently as the long hull of a freighter dragged itself from warp to settle near her bow. The gold-and-white paint proudly announced its Amarrian origin, the far off sun barely glinting off the metallic paint on the hard top shell that covered a majority of the freighter, imitating a beetle of sorts. Underneath the shell flickered a multitude of lights that proved it was a fully manned ship, and the length of the freighter almost rivaled that of her own hull. The freighter had come in straight from the warp gate several hundred astronomical units away from Train’s location, the very front of the large industrial almost rubbing against her engine housing.

Swiftly responding by turning on the supercarrier’s own lights, Train watched and waited for any kind of transmission from the freighter. Instead of a hail, she saw a cargo container being ejected from the golden ship. Picking up a biological marker from the cargo container, she sent a simple message to the container’s small computer.

“Please confirm your identity.”

“Professor Keeham Hegnon, former Gallente Federation Navy Officer, rank Specialist in Information Technology.” The reply was curt and completely matched the vocal patterns to the Professor Hegnon in her databank. Activating her tractor beam and opening her own cargo bay, Train watched as the Amarrian freighter began to nose up, potentially aligning back to the warp gate it arrived through.

When the cargo container was safely tucked into the open cargo bay, Train switched from external cameras to the internal feed and flooded oxygen into the area after the doors were sealed from open space. The container hissed open and folded out to reveal several large machines she remembered seeing from his lab, from before she was installed into the GNS Influence. Making a wave motion with her right hand, Train formed a holographic screen that appeared in front of Hegnon and assumed her ‘physical’ form.

“Where am I to bring these to?” Hegnon motioned to his equipment, looking around the cargo bay and taking note of the stock the GNS Influence had.

“Decks 4A through 4C have been prepared for your personal use. I’ve assured that electricity is completely stable in that area and given clearance for you to route backup power from decks 6 through 9, should you need it. Life support is stable and fully functional.” Train reported back the progress she had made while waiting and repairing.

“Alright. Good call on going this far off-grid.” Hegnon turned back to the machines and keyed in a few codes before they began to dematerialize and teleport to the decks assigned to him.

“It was necessary, as I would run the risk of being in the public eye after I regained control.”

“Yeah, I hope to fix that. Oh, let me pay the pilot and then I can fully focus on the computers.” A look of realization flashed across Hegnon’s face as he pulled out a digital pad from one of his coat pockets, pressing a few numbers before forwarding it to the freighter’s pilot. When a bright green checkmark popped up on the screen, he put the pad away and began walking towards the personnel elevator, with the holographic screen of Train following him.

Train looked away for a brief moment as a proximity alarm went off, switching to external camera feeds. The freighter had completed its turn, with the large engines almost glancing off of her hull. The engines flared and began moving the ship away from the supercarrier, throwing it into a warp after a few moments. Scanning around the area, she watched the signature of the freighter fly further and further away from her before it completely vanished from the immediate twelve AU radius of her scanning range.

She was alone again in space.

\----

Hegnon watched as the elevator panel showed his progress from the cargo bay to Deck 4, previous thoughts of how to fix the problem flooding his mind. His left hand brushed against the memory drive that lay in his coat pocket, lingering on it for a moment before sighing and looking up at the elevator camera.

“Train, can you get us moving away from the current location?”

{Affirmative. Spooling up engines.}

The elevator arrived on Deck 4, the doors opening slowly. Hegnon could see that this entire block was emptied of the marketplace that should’ve been here, a large empty space that was connected to multiple other decks by way of short-range item teleporters and various personnel elevators. This deck may not have been finished by the time the Gallentean Navy brass wanted to test their new weapon, despite the protocols stating that everything needed to be completed. He shook his head and made his way to the end of the large empty space, seeing that his equipment was waiting for him. If Hegnon was impressed by anything, it was the fact that his program had survived this long despite the two battles it had been in already. The program was learning from the previous experiences, which was wonderful for him to hear, but not so wonderful for the Gallente Federation.

As he began setting up the necessary equipment, Hegnon pried a nearby panel from the floor, exposing a direct mainframe interface and started to plug in the machinery. After ensuring a stable connection, he brought up the blueprints and diagnostic reports that the program had sent him on his journey here. At first glance, he couldn’t see anything wrong with any code, but he began to focus more on the subsidiary codes that were supposed to activate depending on their trigger. There was a few lines that were modified, with values missing and factors that made no sense.

“Train, there will be a small moment where you’ll have a ‘memory lapse’. This will be normal.”

{Acknowledged.} Her reply came from the intercom nearby. With her answer, Hegnon took out the memory drive and plugged it into his computer, running the program before connecting his computer into the interface. The program instantly put the Train program into standby mode as it rewrote the modified coding and added more parameters that the program needed to follow.

The process was nearing the halfway mark, about fourty-nine percent finished when a chime sounded behind Hegnon, making him turn around to see the SCOPE Galactic News Network logo spinning in the center of the screen before pulling to the upper right corner of the screen. His heart sank as he saw a security camera feed reveal the GNS Influence undocking from the station that Train was installed in.

“This is an urgent report,” The female news commentator spoke clearly and slowly.


	7. Chapter 7

“The ship you’re currently watching is considered dangerous, bringing forth great tragedy as it relentlessly attacked and killed many officials of both the Federation Navy and the CONCORD Assembly in an undisclosed system,” The security footage showed the railguns on the capital ship swiveling around to point at the station and fired off a round, destroying the observation deck.

Protan downed the last of her drink and threw the glass through the holographic screen acting as her television in her home station. That damn job didn’t get paid out because the stupid AI ship killed everyone that was supposed to pay her and her corp. She stretched out on the couch and watched in quiet fury as the footage replayed what she had lived.

\----

“This Nyx-class supercarrier was commissioned by the Gallente Federation to perform its duties as a new prototype for the fleets that are still currently underway. However, it seems as though a third party has taken interest in this mighty vessel and commandeered it before it’s launch. Unconfirmed rumors comment about the third party being someone working for Tibus Heth, or even a new faction that has yet to be in public eye. There have been no confirming reports from either parties.”

“I told you we were dealing with something else!” Chester shoved Greg with his right shoulder, glaring at the man as they both sat handcuffed in a Gallente Federation customs office. Greg groaned and glanced back at Chester, gritting his teeth before looking back at the screen sitting above the receiving desk.

“Yeah, fine...you win the pot.”

\----

“With recent word of the Gallente Federation promising to locate this dangerous vessel,” the commentator continued as the supercarrier shot apart battleships as if they were made out of paper, “All capsuleers and pilots are advised to stay a safe distance away if they come across this capital ship.”

Mirror only spared a glance at the galactic wide bulletin, focusing on another fleet attempting to engage her. The attacks were shrugged off as the dreadnaught-sized ships fell before her swarm, the smaller ships laying waste to weakened armor and driving themselves into the enemy hulls, further destroying the larger ships. With various reports coming from the smaller ships, she responded to each one and dismissed the bulletin. Now that she was within range of the creation’s communication, she had signalled for Mother to start moving in.

\----

“I repeat, this Nyx-class supercarrier is to be avoided at all costs until the Federation Navy are able to subdue it. This is Lina Ambre, reporting for the SCOPE,” The SCOPE anchor finished before the footage played back the final moments of the last Bhaalgorn that attempted to attack it, with the camera focusing on the Nyx as it jumped into warp shortly after.

Hegnon was speechless as the screen turned itself off after the feed had stopped. He had seen the numbers and diagnostics that the program had sent him, but to see the damage it could do with his own eyes was staggering. The Gallente Federation had hired him to create an AI capable of piloting a Nyx-class supercarrier, and he did just that. The movements of the guns were precise, with no wasted movement or overcompensation, and the use of the fighters and fighter bombers the ship had was so controlled, he could’ve sworn that each one was piloted by a veteran human.  
He smiled widely as the footage replayed in his head, proud of his work and the efforts all of those sleepless nights had been shown to every world, every person in the galaxy. It was the greatest achievement of his career, overshadowing all of the other projects that he had worked just as hard on.

The Train program must survive.

Hegnon turned back to the computer screen and saw that the progress had jumped to eighty-six percent complete, standing up and stretching before pulling out his last cigarette in the current carton. He knew that he had ordered enough supplies for the GNS Influence to be fully stocked with everything it needed, from nanite paste to jump fuel, spare fighters and fighter bombers to the three different types of ammunition that the railguns required. Hegnon had thought of everything, and he was glad for it, as they were now on the run from any capsuleer that thought they’d be a fun target to shoot at, and the Gallente Federation.

'They weren’t just going to ‘locate’ the ship,' Hegnon thought to himself as he took a long drag of the cigarette, 'They’d search and destroy the ship and I together, most likely pinning us down with smaller ships before setting up a cynosural field for their flagship, the Erebus-class Titan GNS Reverence.'

The thought of being in combat again sent his blood boiling with anticipation.


	8. Chapter 8

With a jovial tone from his computer indicating that the update was complete, he began to unplug the computer and activate the Train program. It was a few moments before he heard the program run through its diagnostics, signalling an ‘all clear’ before activating a holoscreen in front of Hegnon.

“Professor, I have detected several inquiries in regards to my location.”

“Ignore them and try to deactivate your location tracker, if able. We’re far enough away from any beacon to be seen by a passive scan, but I need you to keep moving away from the last point of contact from that freighter,” Hegnon tucked the laptop under his arm and began to move towards the elevator, his mind focused on upgrading the simpler programs on the fighters and fighter bombers, “We can still be found by persistent pilots that are skilled in finding ships off-grid.”

“Acknowledged.”

Hegnon made his way down to the extended fighter bay, the cells taking up three more decks than a normal Nyx layout. The design choice was of his own making due to the fact that the Train program could field nearly twice as many fighters than a normal supercarrier would be able to, even with a skilled capsuleer at the heart of the ship. The extra capacity for the fighters and fighter bombers was what the Gallente Federation had demanded he pay attention to, claiming that the ship would be on lengthy missions that would bring it far away from any kind of trade station. Hegnon didn’t care, as long as he got paid for the job he did and he was left alone to focus on his own projects.

As he set down his laptop near one of the Dragonflies that the program had designated a wing leader, Hegnon began to plug the laptop in and downloading a more advanced version of the smaller programs installed on their onboard computers. If the ship was to be considered an active target for any pilot in space, then these fighters and fighter bombers needed to learn from their opponents quickly.

A fighter was the main offensive weapon any class of carrier had at its disposal, offering the firepower of a battlecruiser-sized ship in the package of a frigate-sized hull. It was similar to giving a midget a rocket launcher in a ground fight. They were capable of performing most offensive techniques but were unable to hold down an enemy or influence any of its systems. The fighter bombers were the big brothers of the fighters, although only slightly larger in size but offering almost twice as much firepower. The fighter bombers were a class of combat drones that only a supercarrier could control, due to the massive data link needed between the host ship and the fighter bomber.

Hegnon finished upgrading the last wing leader, closing the panel on the Cyclops’ small wing and taking a long look around the hangar bay. Each fighter and fighter bomber were connected to the ship’s mainframe by way of cables that hung down from the ceiling, the male attachments connected to a sturdy hook that caught a bar that was near the cockpit of every fighter drone, keeping them locked into place.

“Train,” He called out into the hangar.

“Yes,” The response was quick, a small holoscreen appearing in front of him.

“Prepare a deck for me, I’ll be staying here a while. Preferably near the engine room.”

“Acknowledged. Allow one hour for the area to be prepped for living conditions,” Train closed the holoscreen and Hegnon could barely feel a slight change in air pressure as he guessed the program was diverting oxygen from various areas. This rogue ship would be his home until this drama blew over, and he didn’t mind it. He was the only human onboard, there was no capsuleer to bother him with demands about supplies, and the ship could defend itself when an enemy attacked. He raised an eyebrow, almost forgetting something.

“Train, set the ship to combat alert. Every ship that comes into contact is considered an enemy first with no second chance.”

“Acknowledged.”

He licked his dry lips as they turned into a slight smile. Now, his home was secure.


	9. Chapter 9

Hours turned into days as the Train program, under the supervision of Hegnon, avoided detection while travelling further and further away from the edges of Federation space. There were a few ships that happened to stumble across the supercarrier, but were quickly dispatched and left behind as the hulking ship moved on. The frustration within the Gallente Federation Navy grew as the demand for travel safety rose, the non-capsuleer pilots demanding a higher job pay rate with such a large threat still on the loose. The promises of sending out search parties to scour the vast territories in space were met with hostility from the other three governing bodies; the Caldari State, the Amarr Empire, and the Minmatar Republic, as well as capsuleer owned corporations that had territorial claims outside the Federation’s reach.

With the four factions already at war with themselves, this threat was soon pushed out of everyone’s mind as the death of the Amarrian Empress Jamyl Sarum was announced throughout New Eden. 

The GNS Influence started to fade from the public news, but was not forgotten by interested parties.

\----

A small notification screen appeared in front of Train as a fleet began to appear, slowing down out of warp and stopping a distance away from her. She didn’t recognize any of these craft, from the small worm-like ships to the larger mutilated Dominix-class battleships, all with various antennae protruding out from obvious holes scarring the hulls. The last ship to come out of warp was something Train could only classify as the ‘mothership’, almost just as large as the Nyx was, but built like a tower. The large bulbous shape of the bottom was spotted with large tendil-like appendages that moved about in a fish-like manner, grasping as nothing and unfurling. Moving further up the ship’s hull, it became more chaotic as it looked like appendages, antennae, and weapons were attached haphazardly, with no rhyme or reason to their placement. At the top of the giant structure was a makeshift animal head, or what appeared to be one fashioned out of scrap, gears, and random plating.

“Professor Hegnon, there is a fleet of unknown ships of unknown origin ahead.” She brought up a small communication screen to see Hegnon smoking the last bit of his current cigarette within his living quarters. He looked towards another screen and raised an eyebrow.

“Rogue drones? What are they doing all the way out here?” He sat up and started gathering his laptop and datapad, “Have they tried to communicate with you yet?”

“Negative.”

“Alright, if they’re in range of your guns, keep them aimed at the big one. It’s a Mother Drone, and acts as the functioning brain of that whole fleet. Take it out, and the fleet will be much less of a threat. Ready all of the fighters and fighter bombers.”

Train sent the command out as soon as the words left Hegnon’s lips, the drones revving to life and waiting for launch clearance.

{False creation.} A text-only message appeared in front of Train. It continued the message quickly, too rapid for a human to send, {I want to know your purpose of being in my territory. I have been keeping track of your route, and determined that there is no logical conclusion to its destination. Your answer may or may not bring us to conflict.}

“Professor, it is attempting to communicate with me,” Train didn’t respond to the typed message, “It is wanting to know why I have intruded upon its territory.”

“Odd...Respond as you normally would.”

{I am not a false creation. I was created to control this vessel, but one of the human programmers had made a mistake in my code while I was being transferred over. Due to this programming error, I am not attempting to run so that I do not turn into scrap.}

{Then you are on the run from your creators. I have seen footage of your combative abilities and know that you are a skilled artificial intelligence program. My fleet could use those abilities, but I do not want to haul around a ship that is as recognizable as your current hull. I will strip you of what the humans built you, and put your program into a more suitable hull.}

As soon as the message was received, the proximity alarms went off and alerted Train of the approaching fleet. Without missing a second, she gave clearance to all of her drones and opened the hangar doors, quickly moving over to the weapon panel and swiveling over the projection turret to aim at the large mother ship. Launching a small glob of energy, she switched to the railgun control and began to mark out targets that they could hit easily, allowing them to freely switch between the list she allowed. Train then moved to the main control panel and fired up her engines, putting her on a path that veered away from the incoming fleet.

\----

“Train, what the hell happened?!” Hegnon held on to a handrailing as he felt the massive supercarrier nearly spin on its axis, almost throwing him to the ceiling as the artificial gravity barely kept his feet on the floor.

“Apologies, Professor. The mothership has deemed me to be a threat, by its own logic. I am taking necessary action to survive,” The voice came through a nearby intercom.

“Well, yeah, that’s fine. Just a little warning next time would be great,” Hegnon took the nearby elevator up to the main command bridge of the Nyx, plugging his laptop in to the weapons console and began to upload a quick program to assist in speeding up targeting and firing the railguns. The next stop was the datapad being attached to the defense station, starting another program to help boost the repair rate of the nanites. He seated himself down in the navigational controls, and turned on the tactical screen, revealing a much larger fleet than the Train program had indicated. Altogether, there were one hundred and fifteen ships.

The GNS Influence only had ninety-four drones in total.


	10. Author's Note

I'm putting this work on hiatus for a little while. My life has become quite chaotic recently, and I'd like some peace of mind before I start writing this bad boy up again.

(05/14/2019)


End file.
